Dr Emma Hyde

Profile

I completed my PhD in Sociology at the University of Leeds, funded by a Leeds Doctoral Scholarship. Situated in the context of unaffordable housing, economic precarity, and austerity in the UK, my thesis drew on multi-generational interviews to explore young adults’ prolonged co-residence in the parental home. Centring questions of class and socioeconomic diversity, the research examined subjective experiences of constraint and opportunity, and the complex nature of intergenerational relationships and support. My thesis received special commendation of research excellence, and I was recently awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to consolidate this work through publications and dissemination activities (mentored by Professor Sarah Irwin).

I also hold an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science and a BA in English and Sociology from the University of Leeds. Before returning for my PhD, I was appointed as the 2018/19 Ann McPherson Fellow at the Medical Sociology and Health Experiences Research Group, University of Oxford.

I have worked on the following projects in the School of Sociology and Social Policy:

• Making Places Better, Together: The Civic Impact of Community Municipal Investments (led by Professor Mark Davis and funded by an ESRC Impact Accelerator Account award)
• Determinants, Dynamics and Policy Implications of Deep Poverty (led by Dr Daniel Edmiston and funded by the British Academy and Wolfson Foundation)
• Public views and the climate crisis: values, practices and policy change (led by Professor Sarah Irwin, Dr Katy Wright, and Professor Katy Roelich)

I have also worked as a Teaching Assistant supporting the delivery of undergraduate seminars and assessment in the school.

Research interests

My research interests sit broadly within the fields of youth and family sociology. I am particularly interested in young adults’ transitions to adulthood in changing social-historical contexts, and the ways in which wider structural conditions are unequally navigated at the intimate level of the family. My research thus relates to themes of (in)dependence, agency, constraint, and social inequality.

My broader interests and expertise include:

• Youth transitions and the life course
• Intergenerational relationships
• Housing inequalities
• Qualitative research methods

Qualifications

• BA English & Sociology (University of Leeds)
• MSc Inequalities & Social Science (University of Leeds)
• PhD, Sociology (University of Leeds)

Professional memberships

• British Sociological Association
• Social Policy Association

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Research on Families, The Life Course and Generations